A bed time routine is necessary for your toddlers.

We all know that routines usually go down the toilet when summertime arrives, but I am here to tell you why it is so important to keep a bedtime routine during the summer for young children. Teenagers are a whole different subject that maybe we’ll talk about some other time. You man not realize this, but having a bedtime routine is the foundation for an easy, stress-free and productive day.

30 minutes to an hour before bedtime.

I don’t know about your kids, but mine love their tablets, but my girls do not get them at bedtime. We take them away an hour before bedtime. That is if they are even using them. I’ve really limited them on tablet time and try to encourage more physical activities instead. We also stop giving our girls anything liquid 30 minutes to an hour before their bedtime to eliminate the numerous potty trips throughout the night. This will cause broken sleep, which is why they go to the bathroom night before we put them to bed. They will probably want to go one or two more times after that, but that’s because they are kids. The point of this is too keep them from waking up with a full bladder in the middle of the night.

Wined Down Time.

We all know that toddlers can obtain insane amounts of energy at anytime that we wish we could have. This makes it impossible sometimes to get them to bed at a decent hour. We use the hour before bedtime to get their pajamas on, wash them up, brush their hair and their teeth and read them a book. They know that when we do these things, that it’s almost time for bed. This really helps to calm them down.

Stand Your Ground.

Toddlers are limit testers and bedtime is their favorite time is their favorite time to test those limits, They will do and say anything to get you to come in their room. Averie, my 2 year old tests those limits by throwing her toys in the hallway or calling me in her room to put her blanket on her after she’s kicked it off 3 times. My step daughter, Lanaia who’s almost 5 tests more limits. She’ll ask for food, drinks, will tell us that an almost healed 2 week old scratch hurts so bad (but didn’t hurt during the day at all) that she NEEDS medicine and a band aid for it, will call us in there to give her more babies to sleep with when she already has 5 in her bed with her, tell us that we forgot to do something for her and will insist that she get out of her bed for us to do what we forgot to do for her. Half the time, it’s something like, we forgot to feed her dinner which is never true. Lol. Stand your ground and don’t give in to their demands. If you do, that is telling them that they will get what they want when they are suppose to be going to bed and that’s not okay. They need to understand that bedtime means it’s time to go to sleep and nothing else.

Kids need consistency! The more you are consistent with a bedtime routine, the easier it gets, Eventually, they will get use to it. Sometimes you have super crazy days and their bedtime might get pushed back later, it happens. Try and keep the same routine anyways. This shows them that even on hectic days, nothing about bedtime is going to change.

It makes our lives a little easier.

You don’t have to lie, you know you look forward to bedtime. I know I do, especially around 6:30- 7pm. Like I’ve said in previous posts, parenting and keeping little humans alive is exhausting in everyway. We rely on bedtime to collect ourselves, you know, find all our marbles that we lost throughout the day. Adults NEED time to just be adults… or drink, NOT watch PBS kids and finally eat that candy bar that you’ve been hiding without having little humans stare at you like begging dogs. Who am I kidding, we have bedtime routines for ourselves. 😉

All kids are obviously different, so they might require different things, but every kid needs a routine, no matter how you do it.

Consistency is so key to bedtime!! We haven’t struggled much with bedtime until recently (my threenager fights bedtime like a rabid animal), so we are now toying with how to update the routine (mostly how we prepare him for bedtime BEFORE bedtime).